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As I mentioned in other posts, I used to make knives much more frequently as a hobby, but got a little bored of it. SO now I'm doing slingshots for my Zen moments of the day. I used G10 in my handles often when I made knives, but the cuts are a lot straighter, and you can rub up on steel a lot more with a sander than you can to aluminum. So being precise with cutting isn't as important, unless you're doing a mosaic style handle or inlay, but I always steered clear of G10 when I did those types of things.
So my question is what do you use to cut your G10 when it has some serious curves?
I have the following in my workshop that I thought would be best suited for this:
a ryobi benchtop band saw-
Even with the thinnest possible blades I can get, they always twist when I get to a decent curve. I've busted more bands this way. The G10 also dulls them extremely quickly, but I can live with that. Only real luck I've had is drilling around the circumfrence of the G10 first and then cutting, but then I spend an long time on the sander, and it's really easy to start eating into an aluminum core on a sander. Did I mention, I have this issue with 1/4 G10, but not as much with 1/8th or thinner? It's the 1/4 inch stuff that gets me. Anything thinner is usually doable.
a blade runner-
I have a tough time keeping the material flat with this, and an even tougher time with curves, and again, it eats the blades.
Benchtop scroll saw-
just picked this up on Prime day. Nothing fancy. Most scroll saws under $200 all use the same base, with just some minor tweaks among brands. I got the bucktool (never heard of them before) because it was cheap, it takes pinned and pinless blades, and it has a cast iron table. I thought this was going to solve all my issues. It chewed through 2 blades in two inches. Not breaking them.(it did that too, but that was purely my fault) It wore the teeth completely down to flat going through less than 2 inches of distance in the material.
I also have jig saws, coping saws, pretty much any other basic/standard tool you might find. I'm at the point where I think I just need to stick to G10 3/16ths and thinner, or else I need to cut everything thicker out by hand with a coping saw.
What do you all suggest?
THANKS!
So my question is what do you use to cut your G10 when it has some serious curves?
I have the following in my workshop that I thought would be best suited for this:
a ryobi benchtop band saw-
Even with the thinnest possible blades I can get, they always twist when I get to a decent curve. I've busted more bands this way. The G10 also dulls them extremely quickly, but I can live with that. Only real luck I've had is drilling around the circumfrence of the G10 first and then cutting, but then I spend an long time on the sander, and it's really easy to start eating into an aluminum core on a sander. Did I mention, I have this issue with 1/4 G10, but not as much with 1/8th or thinner? It's the 1/4 inch stuff that gets me. Anything thinner is usually doable.
a blade runner-
I have a tough time keeping the material flat with this, and an even tougher time with curves, and again, it eats the blades.
Benchtop scroll saw-
just picked this up on Prime day. Nothing fancy. Most scroll saws under $200 all use the same base, with just some minor tweaks among brands. I got the bucktool (never heard of them before) because it was cheap, it takes pinned and pinless blades, and it has a cast iron table. I thought this was going to solve all my issues. It chewed through 2 blades in two inches. Not breaking them.(it did that too, but that was purely my fault) It wore the teeth completely down to flat going through less than 2 inches of distance in the material.
I also have jig saws, coping saws, pretty much any other basic/standard tool you might find. I'm at the point where I think I just need to stick to G10 3/16ths and thinner, or else I need to cut everything thicker out by hand with a coping saw.
What do you all suggest?
THANKS!
